Читать книгу Tom Thomson's Last Paddle - Larry McCloskey - Страница 7

“I’m bored,” Dani sighed.

“What took you so long?” Caitlin asked. “I’ve been bored ever since these trees started. I mean, have you ever seen so many trees? Trees, and trees, and trees—it’s enough to drive a person insane. Trees to the left, trees to the right. Bored? Of course, you’re bored.”

“You should never be bored in this life,” Dani’s dad announced in a deep voice from the front of the van.

“It comes with the territory of being twelve-year-olds, John,” Caitlin’s dad interjected.

John ignored his friend. “Why, look at the magnificence of the landscape, the history of the area.” Gripping the wheel tightly and Ping-Ponging his head repeatedly to make eye contact with the girls in the back seat, he seemed to be bouncing with the excitement of personally introducing two preteens to Mother Nature.

Dani and Caitlin exchanged glances. They had something other than nature in mind for this trip with their fathers.

“Did you know that in two months’ time,” John continued, “along this very Ottawa Valley, we’ll be able to experience the most dramatic fall colours in the entire world? Think of that the next time you get bored. Why—”

“Sure, Dad. But remember, you promised us a real juicy mystery,” Dani interrupted, winking at her friend beside her. “That’s the reason we agreed to come on this nature tour of Algonquin Park. We want to find out about this Tom Thomson guy ’cause you said something about him being a big mystery. Isn’t that right, Caitlin?”

“Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.”

This wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. Dani and Caitlin had been working on a plan since winter to get their dads to take them camping in Algonquin—they thought they might prefer the call of the wild to their bossy older sisters, the heat of the city, and stupid boys with nothing better to do than sit around with garden hoses ready to soak them at every turn. Nature to the girls meant a fun week convincing their pliable dads of marshmallowy fine dining and daily trips into the visitor centre for gelato and magazines. It would be the perfect holiday.

The trick was to divert attention from their scheme and make it seem as if it was their dads’ idea. John and Bob hadn’t known each other very well, and neither was particularly skilled at camping. So the girls puzzled and puzzled all through the spring until they came up with the perfect reason for their dads to become friends: running! Both men were self-described “skinny, angst-ridden, obsessive Irish runner types.” Whenever they referred to themselves as such, they would laugh long and loud, even though it wasn’t funny the first time. Still, it got the job done. The men became good friends, took the bait about camping, and soon surprised the girls with their brilliant idea about camping in Algonquin Park.

But while the girls thought the camping trip was about mystery and gelato, the dads seriously seemed to think they were going to Algonquin Park to discover nature, and something about surviving in it. What fun could there be in that?

“We’ll get to the juicy part in a minute, Dani, but first you have to know something about one of Canada’s foremost landscape painters,” Dani’s father announced, perched so far forward in the driver’s seat he was mostly addressing the windshield wipers. “And he just happens to be closely associated with the place where we’re camping—Canoe Lake.”

John pretended not to hear the complaints from the girls in the back seat. Still, for all their harmonious groaning, Dani and Caitlin were not particularly alike. Dani’s eyes were green and Caitlin’s were blue. Dani’s denim overalls and greasy brown pigtails were her constant companions, while Caitlin’s many outfits and blond French braids were perfectly styled and always in fashion. Dani loved mysteries and misadventure, while Caitlin preferred adventure, and it was a mystery to her why Dani seemed to be drawn to double trouble. The girls were best friends.

“Now,” John continued, “everyone assumes Canoe Lake was named by Tom Thomson, but it was actually named by two explorers—Alexander Murray and later David Thompson, spelled with a p. Both of these men made split-cedar canoes in the surrounding area in the mid-1800s.”

Dani’s dad continued his rambling history as he glanced across at Bob, who was nodding with interest, and to the girls in the back of the van, just to be sure they were listening. With each look away from the road, Bob grimaced and nodded extra hard just to make certain his friend knew he was listening. Sitting between the two inattentive twelve-year-olds, Nikki, Dani’s beagle, snorted, snored, and drooled. A painter might have been tempted to call this portrait of canine contentment a natural sleepscape.

“Dani, I warn you. I don’t have your mother’s ability to remove bubble gum from hair,” John said, swivelling his head with the force of a lawn sprinkler in time to catch Dani’s latest attempt at the world bubble-blowing record.

“Now, of course, you’ve probably seen some of Thomson’s better-known paintings—The West Wind, Northern River…”

“And The Jack Pine,” Bob added from the passenger seat.

“Yes, The Jack Pine, definitely,” Dani’s dad agreed. “During the First World War, no one painted quite like him. He was an innovator who influenced the Group of Seven. In fact, The Canadian Encyclopedia described his style as a ‘smash and stab of passion flying before thought.’ What’s more, he was an outdoorsman, a naturalist, a park guide, a skilled canoeist…”

Dani’s latest giant bubble smacked as she flipped through a book and periodically vocalized a lethargic “Uh-huh.” Meanwhile Caitlin, steeped in the sunshine coming through the van’s windows on this humid August morning, struggled to keep her eyes open.

John lifted an eyebrow with annoyance. “Oh, I’m being boring, I guess.”

Dani gathered her gum and poised for another attempt as Caitlin thrust her head upward, alert but not particularly aware. “Oh, no, sir, we were following your story.”

Looking at her friend, Dani placed a hand over one side of her mouth and whispered, “Sucker.”

Caitlin continued to incriminate herself in a groggy, slurred voice. “Camping and painting…7-Eleven, yes, very interesting.”

John’s second eyebrow climbed next to its neighbour. “Yes, well, it seems Thomson inexplicably turned to canvas after a successful career painting all the 7-Eleven stores. Of course, there were only a couple dozen in the chain around the First World War.”

Dani’s gum bubble popped again, this time covering much of her nose. “Darn, I was so close.” As she struggled to gather the remnants of her deflated masterpiece, she added matter-of-factly, “Sorry, Dad, but where exactly is the mystery here?”

John sighed and rolled his eyes at Bob, who rolled his eyes back at John.

“And another thing,” Dani added, picking gum off her nose, “how come his parents called him Tom? Didn’t they remember their own last name? And doesn’t Thomson mean son of Tom? So was his dad’s last name Thomson, too?”

Nothing came from the front seat but sighs. Caitlin tried to seem alert so Dani’s dad wouldn’t be insulted. But her eyes were very, very heavy. The sunlight was so warm and comforting, and the movement of the car lulled her into seductive sleep. With thoughts of down-filled comforters, Caitlin let her head sink, her face moulded to the car window as a small stream of drool seeped from her misshapen mouth. From deep, deep within the well of her mind a more conscious and alert Caitlin struggled to ascend the slippery wall and rouse the dozy girl creating the pool of liquid on the window. Several times she managed to climb to the top, peer out, and catch fragments of what Dani’s dad was saying, but each time she slipped back down and landed in that comfortable place. Looking up at the well opening, she vaguely wondered why she even struggled, why she didn’t just lie back and enjoy the tingling sensation of sleep. And then that rambling voice began again…

“Goes off on his own into the wilderness, paints these national treasures… and I’m talking about over three hundred sketches and at least twenty-four canvases in just three and a half years… sells some for next to nothing or gives them away… a few people in the know start to understand he’s a really good painter, especially after the Ontario government pays $250 for a single painting, Northern Lake, quite a sum for a relative unknown at the time.

“This begins to establish his reputation—or notoriety, to some—but to the residents of Canoe Lake, where he spends most of his time from early spring until late fall, he’s just Tom Thomson, keen fisherman, skilled outdoors-man, expert canoeist, and all-round regular guy. Kind of a loner, nice guy, liked by most people. Even has a girlfriend among the summer residents of Canoe Lake, an otherwise resident of Huntsville.

“Well, actually it’s never really known just what the nature of the relationship is. In fact, it’s never exactly clear what happened during the days and hours leading up to his unexpected death on July 8, 1917. The whole saga of Thomson’s life and death at Canoe Lake remains to this day a living mystery, with the cloud of murder always hanging over the case, a sort of stormy silence that won’t go away. Why, even now—”

Something caught Dani’s attention as she carefully spread her gum across her teeth. Something caught Caitlin’s attention from the depths of the down-filled well where she lay blissfully imprisoned by a thousand pillows.

“Mystery?” Dani asked with sudden excitement.

“Murder?” Caitlin questioned with a slight slur from that pesky saliva that left distortions of her face on the window.

The dads looked at each other, then quickly into the back seat.

“Dad, could you please tell us more about this mystery? And, by the way, we can hear fine when you’re looking at the road.”

“And don’t forget about the murder, please, sir,” a wideawake Caitlin added.

John’s mouth hung open, but words failed him completely.

“Are you girls… really interested?” Dani’s dad finally asked.

“Absolutely!” the girls answered, with just a tad too much enthusiasm.

Dani could see her dad’s eyebrows in the mirror scrunched up with confusion and doubt.

“What kind of mystery could stay a mystery for about a million years, Dad?”

“And who murdered Tom Thomson, sir?” Caitlin asked while attempting to unsmudge the window glass with her T-shirt.

Dani rolled her eyes. “If they knew who murdered Tom Thomson, it wouldn’t still be a mystery.”

Caitlin folded her arms decisively, felt some dampness on her sleeve, and quickly unfolded them again. “I knew that. Really.”

“Well,” Dani’s dad began, still unsure of his audience, “the first mystery is whether or not he was murdered or simply had an accident. That’s been a great Canadian question mark for about eighty-five years, which isn’t quite a million years. People were divided over the question of accident versus murder at the time and remain divided today.” Another quick glance in the mirror confirmed the interest was genuine.

“How come they still don’t know, Dad? I thought murder mysteries were always solved after half a million years or so.”

“Well, the thing is, Tom Thomson died under very suspicious circumstances, and there were no witnesses.” Dani pulled her trusty journal and pencil out of her knapsack. “Tom drowned in Canoe Lake. But the whole thing’s bizarre, really. He was an experienced canoeist and a very good swimmer. The day he died was calm and he was paddling on very familiar waters. But what’s strange is that earlier he’d had a dispute with a German fellow named Martin Blecher. They had argued about the war Canada was fighting with Germany. Tom, of course, was a patriot. I think he was a little sensitive to this Blecher fellow’s pro-Germany opinions. Tom had been disqualified from active duty because of fallen arches, if you can believe it.” John’s head did an instantaneous one-eighty, then snapped forward again when they came to some tricky curves in the road.

“Keep going, Dad.”

“Wasn’t there also some suspicion the butler did it, or in this case the innkeeper?” Bob asked.

“Right you are—Shannon Fraser, the owner of Mowat Lodge. Sixty years after Tom’s death, one of the last survivors of that time swore her friend Annie Fraser, who was Shannon’s wife, confessed to her that her husband had murdered Tom in an argument over money.”

Dani’s eyes grew big. “Wow!”

“And after his body was discovered there were a number of very suspicious facts and events that came to light that are still puzzling.”

“Like what?” Caitlin asked.

John checked yet again in the mirror to make sure his newly interested listeners weren’t pulling his leg. “He had a wound on his right temple as though he’d been struck by a paddle or some other blunt object. His favourite ash paddle was never found, and there was fishing line wrapped around his left ankle sixteen times for no apparent reason. Strangest of all, Tom’s constant companion, a sixteen-foot grey-green chestnut canoe, vanished into thin air sometime after they found his body.”

“Dad, how in the world do you know all this stuff?”

John chuckled. “Oh, guys just know certain things.”

“Didn’t you just read about it yesterday in that book Dani got you for your birthday?” Bob asked.

The talking dad looked at the asking dad with sad eyes, sort of the way Nikki did when he accomplished something particularly clever and nobody noticed.

“Oh, yeah,” Dani said thoughtfully. “But I thought that book was about mysterious rock formations and junk like that. I didn’t know it had interesting stuff like unsolved murders.”

“Murder’s not supposed to make you so happy, Dani,” Caitlin said.

“I’m not happy,” Dani said, trying to hide her excitement. “I’m just kind of interested, that’s all.”

Caitlin giggled. “Oh, sure, Detective Dani.”

John tried to recapture the sweet sensation of finally having a fully attentive audience. “Of course, the Ottawa Valley was best known in its early pioneering life for its lumber industry, something few people think about these days. And in truth there really is very little to mark its passing as you drive or boat along the river valley…”

Dani’s dad made yet another quick inspection of the back seat to see how he was doing. Nikki continued blissfully unaware in La La Land; Caitlin allowed her eyes to droop as her face gripped the window glass and she drifted once again toward the bottom of the well on a big puffy pillow; Dani wrote ferociously in her journal and smacked her gum, preparing for yet another attempt at the record.

With a grin, and in his deepest radio voice, Bob said, “I’m listening.”

John groaned and focused his attention completely on the road for the first time that day. The van climbed and passed St. Mary’s Church. The Ottawa River, favoured among rafters because of its thundering whitewater, was flanked by luscious farm fields and the odd gnarly oak tree. The scene, under the noon sun and cumulous clouds, looked as it might have a hundred years ago—not that the girls took any notice. Descending toward Barry’s Bay, they motored under ancient pine tress. Colossal columns of sunshine and shadow filtered through the van. Dani’s dad whistled through slightly bared teeth, then said, mostly to himself, “What really holds their attention is a complete and utter mystery to me.”